Gift of Exile Chapter 37
Now living in Minnesota with a new job and new man, Ennis discovers that he's been outed to his daughters before he could tell them.
Part 4: Back to Brokeback
Chapter 37
New Year's Day, 2003
Ennis was long accustomed to their annual open house by now, although at first it had been another hurdle to get over. The routine was now familiar: food and general socializing upstairs; television and snacks for football and parade fans downstairs. He'd been able to just follow behind David and Maggie and by the time Maggie and Sam had moved to Ely, he was at least familiar with the people who showed up.
Andrea always showed up, as did various neighbors many of the people at the store and, for the past 16 years, Jerry and Rachel, and, over the years, students from Ennis' horseback riding classes. David's cheese grits, a sausage-and-egg casserole and store bought dinner rolls were regular features at the buffet, as was Andrea's tiramisu, at least one hotdish contributed by a neighbor and rolls for the salmonberry jelly that Edna still made every year. Ennis had inherited Maggie's job: napkins, disposable plates and flatware, coffee and tea. He also set out the boxful of coffee cups and mugs David had bought at thrift stores and yard sales over the years: “no one drinks anything out of styrofoam at my house”, was one of his few rules.
This would be a special year. Maggie and Sam would be in attendance for the first time in five years, as would Jerry, his daughter Karen and her new husband Roy. Rachel had died last year of a swiftly-spreading cancer, only a month after the wedding, and considering how mysterious she had been to Ennis, he was surprised at how much he'd missed her. Edna McClure had spent the last few winter holidays in St. Paul now that Dennis was gone; but was visiting with friends in Duluth this year and was bringing them along.
These were the people Ennis now felt comfortable with, although even neighbors that he saw only a few times a year now seemed familiar, like the ranch hands he used to see every summer. But now he had another reason to look forward to this New Year's, and to take every minute to heart.
This might be the last time.
Early October, 1985
It had happened so fast that his surroundings on the airliner seemed unreal. Alma's terse phone call had come shortly after sunrise and by noon he was on a flight to Amarillo: Junior had suffered a miscarriage. “I'll be there soon's I can get a plane ticket,” he said. “No need,” she'd answered and he'd responded with “didn't say anythin' about needin' “ before hanging up. But he'd been relieved when Alma had mentioned that the house Junior and Curt had rented was small and she'd be the only one staying there although Jenny would be coming as well.
It had taken only one experience with air travel for Ennis to hate it; but this time the discomforts of the cramped steerage-style quarters, stale air and sheer boredom were overridden by his uneasiness over this visit. Since his move to Duluth he had talked with Junior and Jenny on the phone occasionally; but both had sounded uncharacteristically ill at ease, as if they were speaking to a stranger and being careful of everything they'd said. And Alma's voice had that unmistakable I-dare-you tone she'd often used; he could imagine her familiar posture: looking down as if studying something else intently but throwing second-long glances at him here and there. It was unexpected, considering the wary civility that had grown up around them after Junior's wedding.
But “of course you've gotta go,” David encouraged. While Ennis was packing, he had quickly made reservations for a plane ticket, rental car and motel. Leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, as if pretending it was possible to sleep, Ennis knew that Jack was close by but suspected that he would not hear from him.
He was surprised to see Junior waiting for him at the gate. “I told Mom I wanted to ride back home with you, she and Jenny just got here last night. I had her drop me off.” Ennis was glad to see her, but the feeling of some missing piece about to fall into place persisted. “You feelin' okay?” he asked as they got underway in the rental car. “Oh yeah,” she assured him. “Kinda hungry, I think I forgot ta eat this morning.” Ennis saw a Denny's sign half a block ahead and pulled into the parking lot, ignoring Junior's protest: “you're gonna have a few bites at least before we go anywhere.”
Though neither mentioned it, they were both glad to be in each other's company. Alma Junior was more like her father than her namesake, and he had more in common with his eldest daughter than the women in either his birth family or the one he and Alma had started. He'd seen her in Riverton only months before but he imagined that her 21-year-old face looked older in a way he couldn't define, with the flesh stretched a little more tightly across her cheekbones. “I'm sorry about what happened, darlin', he ventured, not knowing what else to say to her. “I wish I had a happier reason for visitin'.”
She shook her head but he could tell she was pleased. “I'm just glad you're here now, Daddy. A few people at the hospital said things like good thing it was so early and you can always try again. I know they meant well but they all seemed to be saying, I didn't really lose anything. And it was just 12 weeks but. . . . Curt and me, we'd known for almost a month and at first neither of us were happy about it. Married just a year and him just startin' a new job. But then we started to plan for it, you know - names, boy or girl, what we needed for the nursery, what she'd look like, what she'd be like, I felt from the start it'd be a girl. And now it feels like we imagined all that....”
“Like it all just disappeared 'n' never happened.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew it, and startled him. But she nodded in agreement. “I think Curt misses that too, plannin' for it, but he hasn't talked much. Just been takin' on more time at work, overtime too and I know we've got some medical bills now but I had insurance--”
The little splinter of pain wasn't diminished by being anticipated. “That's what men do sometimes, darlin'. Start workin' a lot, I mean. It's kinda like - drinkin' ta forget.”
To his surprise, she brightened a little and even look relieved. “Really? I'm glad to told me that, Daddy. And I'm glad you're here now, but. . . . I hope you won't be sorry you came. That's one reason I wanted ta meet you --” So this was it, what he'd been feeling apprehensive about since the phone call. His heart took a few faster beats and his stomach felt queasy.
“You remember that day a friend a yours showed up and you introduced me and Jenny to him? His name was Jack.”
“I remember.” No way he could forget: he'd rarely seen Jack smile after that day.
“Next Thanksgiving we were at Mama and Monroe's house and you and Mama had some kinda big fight in the kitchen. After you - left - Monroe got her a little calmed down and took her upstairs and he told us, just stay down here, don't go anywhere. But Jenny wasn't gonna sit still for that, she waited just a minute or two and went up to our bedroom, the closet in that room backed up ta theirs. She told me afterward she couldn't hear everything they were sayin' but she did hear Mama say, I told you he was runnin' around on me but it wasn't another woman, it was a fishing buddy named Jack. And both of us remembered meeting him....”
They had known. He was too stunned to make any reply. Those years when he'd been so careful, afraid people on the street knew but thinking the people at home didn't - it had all been like trying to carry water in a towel.
“But the next couple a years you weren't going off on those trips so often, the year before me and Curt got married you didn't go at all. So we thought you'd gotten over - whatever it was.” She was looking away from him, her face flushed with the common embarrassment of acknowledging a parent's sexuality in any form.
“I wouldn't be bringin' this up, Daddy, I'd never a mentioned it, but... I think Jenny's gonna bring it up.
“Jenny?”
“She got religion last year, you know. Oh, I'm not talkin' about a cult, it's just a regular Lutheran church she's goin' to, she's got a secretary job there now. And she's engaged to that guy Larry she was talkin' about last year at Christmas, he's just started at a seminary back east. Anyway, she just got her own place but up ta now she was sharing that apartment with Curt's sister. And when she told Luanne about your movin' ta Minnesota and that new job Luanne remembered some relatives from Georgia that were at our wedding. She'd got ta be friends with a lady named Charlene -“
We won’t be seeing David at his wedding anytime soon, not unless they change the laws and Nathan comes back to life. Such an important thing it had been to know about the man who, for a few moments, had seemed to him to resemble Jack, and from such an unlikely source. “Yeah. I remember them.”
“So anyway....” she'd been speaking rapidly, words tumbling over each other as if she wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. “She's got it set up in her mind that she's gotta save your soul and have you get religion too. I told her to let it be and Mama did too but I don't know much she was listening ta either of us.”
At first, it seemed like the visit would be all right. Jenny had seemed glad enough to see him and he and Alma had resumed the cautious cordiality that had solidified over the last year or so; though he couldn't ignore the disappearance of the easy, though brief, conversations that had characterized his relationship with his son-in-law. A drive around the town including a look at Curt's workplace, long discussions of the merits and demerits of the house and yard (“we're rentin' to buy,” Curt had told them proudly), meals, and Junior's and Jenny's reminscences of Riverton and friends they wanted to visit there when they got the chance --- all mercifully ate up the rest of that day and most of following one. Alma was staying in the freshly-painted room that had been planned as a nursery and looking through the door, Ennis felt a commiserating ache at the reminder of vanished plans. He'd been asked what Duluth was like and they'd seemed sincerely impressed when he told them about his new job and his riding classes. “I'll give 'em a rainy day lesson,” Jerry had reassured him over the phone before he left. “How to groom a horse, put on 'n' take off a saddle and bridle, do's and don'ts of feeding 'em - no reason not learn any of that in a riding class.”
But then on the second night they'd gathered on the front porch for a picnic of take-out pizza, garlic bread, beer and ice tea, and conversation temporarily died out as the air grew cooler and the sun had glimmered over the rooftops of nearby houses before sinking out of sight. He was just wondering how soon he'd be able to get away, pleading the early flight tomorrow morning, and be free of the feeling of waiting for a blow to fall when Jenny asked suddenly “are you goin' back ta Duluth tomorrow, Daddy?” This is it, but he managed to give the answer she already knew. “Daddy, I've been waiting ta ask you, don't go back ta that place. Come back ta Denver with me.”
It was worse than anything he'd been through short of looking at the returned postcard stamped DECEASED. Worse, in a way, than his sleeping and waking nightmares about the tire irons: the assailant wasn't a mob of virulent men on whom he might at least inflict considerable pain before they took him out, but one of the two young women who had comprised the only real family he'd had. Everyone on the porch remained seated but the feeling of facing a tribunal ready to pronounce a sentence made him feel that he was standing.
“Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye.”
It was the only thing that kept him from fleeing altogether, having to stand it be damned. At the time he'd barely been aware through the cloud of rage and panic: stopping Alma just short of blurting it all out, you didn't go up there to fish. You 'n' him-- and shaking a fist in her face, something he'd never done. But he remembered the two girls nonetheless, standing on the porch, their voices still so pleading and disappointed after the intervening years.
He wasn't even sure how to react to what Jenny was saying, as so much of it wasn't making sense. “I know you're not goin' ta like hearing this, Daddy,” she began. “And believe me, I don't like sayin' anything about it but I love you too much to leave you the way you are.” She repeated what Junior had already told him about how she'd found out that he was “living with that cousin of Curt's” and about “what happened to his stepbrother.” He didn't look over at Junior but he could almost feel her nervousness and subsequent relief that he'd hadn't given their conversation away.
From there on Jenny meandered into a monologue about a “plan” God had for him and everyone else, how easy it was for anyone to stray away from it “when we try to do things our own way”; and how everyone did in fact stray; after which she used the words broken and brokenness a number of times and made one totally mystifying reference to “worshiping the creature.” She was sincere what she was saying but there was something rehearsed and stilted about it nonetheless; as if, should anyone interrupt her, she might lose her place in the recitation and have to start over. “But I'm not criticizing you, Daddy. We're all sinners and - what you've been doin' - it isn't any worse a sin than drunkenness, or stealing.”
The reference startled him, like an unprovoked kick. “Jenny, there's been lots a times I've been drinkin' more'n I should but I never --”
“That doesn't matter, Daddy. Any sin puts us apart from God, and God can't even deal with it 'till you come to him with a broken heart, through Jesus. That's the only way. God's eyes are too holy to look upon sin --”
The image that immediately filled his mind was not that of a stern cosmic judge but of his brief acquaintance with Vic at the gathering in Grandma's: the dauntingly impeccable dress, the scornful references to Jonathan complete with one side of his mouth slanting up in a half-grimace and nose wrinkled delicately as if in reaction to an unpleasant smell. Before he could even wonder at this trivial memory at such a time it dissolved and something scraped lightly at the edges of awareness like the tiniest pebble in a thin shoe: something like a massive flood that swept away everything before it, of a feeling of awe devoid of fear; before a door slammed on the memory he could never quite revive. “What is it you want me to do?” he asked.
Mistaking his confusion for acceptance, she smiled. “Daddy, I know you think there's no one who can help you with this, but there is. And I'm not just talkin' about prayer, I mean real people who can help you. My minister told me about a group in California called Oasis Ministries, they've helped a lot of people come out of that. Some can't, but that just means God has called some people to chastity and they'd support you if it came ta that. I can go with you, and when we get back home maybe the church can even help set up a support group. God is extending His hand, all you have to do is take it, and my church would welcome you. It's a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”
For a few disquieting seconds he was tempted, imagining a future in which he had nothing to hide, accepted as a repentant sinner but still, accepted; and no longer living so much of the time in a state of controlled anxiety. But in the next moment he knew that the same people who would welcome him into the church as a reformed sexual outlaw would never really accept him. For them he would always carry the taint of pollution and corruption; and they would be proud to show him off at church suppers and picnics and be kind enough to try to prevent him from noticing that they kept their children at a safe distance.
“You know, I ain't queer.” “Me neither.”
But that was something he could stand, though not fix: he had been alone for most of his life. What he would be able to neither fix nor stand would be hearing the pleasure in David's voice over the phone and then telling him he would never be returning to Duluth. Although he wouldn't be able to see David's face, he had only to remember the looks Jack had given him on a long ago day when, with Junior and Jenny watching curiously from the car, he'd told Jack that there'd been a terrible misunderstanding about the divorce. David would be added to the victims of his fear and for all Jenny's good intentions, he would be walking through what he'd been told was Heaven's gate with the stench of brimstone in his nostrils.
He was already shaking his head. “No, Jenny. I'm not goin' ta do that, it wouldn't be.... right.”
“It's the way you've been livin' that isn't right, Daddy. And please don't think I'm blaming you. We all sin, and you've had some bad luck, you've met two bad men who took advantage--”
“Now you shut up about Alma, it ain't her fault.” “Leave them outta this.”
This was not something that anything she'd rehearsed had prepared her for. “Leave....?”
Confronting one of his daughters and risking losing her sickened him. “I know you don't like how I'm livin', Jenny. And if you made me a list a ten ways I let you down as a dad, I could add ten more things to it. But I never let Jack speak bad about your mother and I ain't goin' ta let you speak bad about Jack. And not about David either, he ain't done nothing but be the best man he knows how.”
The protective mask of evangelistic concern dropped and was replaced with defensive anger. “I should have known. Whole time we were growin' up, you were always runnin' off on your fishin' trips - when you weren't off workin'. That man always came first with you - and you came first with Mama, and then Monroe after that --” She was flushed and stammering, and Ennis never knew what would have happened next if Alma had not suddenly stood up and taken her daughter by one arm. “That's enough, Jenny.”
The long-buried anger swiveled toward Alma. “You're defending him, after how he treated you? He--”
“You don't need ta give me a review. There's scores between me and your Dad that'll never be settled but we loved both of you, that was something we never disagreed on. And I'm sorry you always felt like you were in the background, there's nothing we can do about that now. If there's anything you'll learn when you get older - anything any of us learn - it's that things never turn out exactly like you expect.”
It was a welter of confusion and embarrassing emotionalism after that. Jenny had burst into years, Junior had hugged her, Alma had hugged Junior, Jenny had hugged both of them in turn and by then all three were in tears. Ennis' and Curt's eyes had met for the first time in Ennis' visit and despite the awkwardness that had now sprung up between them the glance made both feel a little less uneasy. “I guess it's time ta go,” Alma ventured and the two sisters disappeared into the house momentarily, Curt taking advantage of the moment by following them. Suddenly exhausted and newly self-conscious about being the centerpiece of a family uproar, Ennis leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly. He'd forgotten that Alma was still on the porch, sitting across from him with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Thanks for helpin' just now,” he said finally.
She sighed. “I've never got around much, Ennis. Lived in Riverton all my life, married not long after high school. Never traveled much, except a few trips to Vegas with Monroe. But I have learned a few things over the years. That day Jack Twist came to town and you went off together, you were so nervous and sort of smartened up, like you were goin' out on a date. Hard ta believe now I didn't figure it out before ---” she hesitated a moment - “well, before.”
“I never meant for either of the girls ta know.”
“But that's done now. But Jenny will be okay. What she was sayin', she'd been keeping it in for years, oh, I'm not sayin' she didn't mean any of the religious stuff. But what she was wantin' ta do was go back and do everything over the right way. None of us ever get ta do that. Just give her some time, she'll work it out. And Junior was so happy that you were comin' ta visit, she was feelin' a lot lower about losing the baby than she let on.”
She stood up. “It's been a long two days. You headin' back to the motel soon?”
“Yeah, I want ta say goodbye to the girls yet so I'll sit here awhile.”
“That'd be a good idea. Good night, Ennis.”
He looked over and smiled at her, for the first time in a decade. “Good night, Alma.”
Index to chapters:
Chapter 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html
Chapter 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/523.html
Chapter 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1066.html
Chapter 4: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1485.html
Chapter 5: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1704.html
Chapter 6: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2038.html
Chapter 7: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2358.html
Chapter 8: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2635.html
Chapter 9: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2947.html
Chapter 10: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3130.html
Chapter 11: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3356.html
Chapter 12: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3655.html
Chapter 13: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3934.html
Chapter 14: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4154.html
Chapter 15: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4591.html
Chapter 16: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4685.html
Chapter 17: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5094.html
Chapter 18: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5140.html
Chapter 19: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5546.html
Chapter 20: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6249.html
Chapter 21: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6434.html
Chapter 22: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6843.html
Chapter 23: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7306.html
Chapter 24: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7646.html
Chapter 25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7723.html
Summary, Chapters 1-25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8106.html
Chapter 26 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8417.html
Chapter 26 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8634.html
Chapter 27: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8869.html
Chapter 28 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9090.html
Chapter 28, Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9371.html
Chapter 28 Part 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9498.html
Chapter 29: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9953.html
Chapter 30: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10733.html
Chapter 31 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10870.html
Chapter 31 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11153.html
Chapter 32: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11480.html
Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11931.html
Notes/Index, Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12217.html
Chapter 34: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12435.html
Index post: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12557.html
Chapter 35: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13226.html
Chapter 36 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13382.html
Chapter 36 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13729.html
Chapter 37: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13827.html
Part 4: Back to Brokeback
Chapter 37
New Year's Day, 2003
Ennis was long accustomed to their annual open house by now, although at first it had been another hurdle to get over. The routine was now familiar: food and general socializing upstairs; television and snacks for football and parade fans downstairs. He'd been able to just follow behind David and Maggie and by the time Maggie and Sam had moved to Ely, he was at least familiar with the people who showed up.
Andrea always showed up, as did various neighbors many of the people at the store and, for the past 16 years, Jerry and Rachel, and, over the years, students from Ennis' horseback riding classes. David's cheese grits, a sausage-and-egg casserole and store bought dinner rolls were regular features at the buffet, as was Andrea's tiramisu, at least one hotdish contributed by a neighbor and rolls for the salmonberry jelly that Edna still made every year. Ennis had inherited Maggie's job: napkins, disposable plates and flatware, coffee and tea. He also set out the boxful of coffee cups and mugs David had bought at thrift stores and yard sales over the years: “no one drinks anything out of styrofoam at my house”, was one of his few rules.
This would be a special year. Maggie and Sam would be in attendance for the first time in five years, as would Jerry, his daughter Karen and her new husband Roy. Rachel had died last year of a swiftly-spreading cancer, only a month after the wedding, and considering how mysterious she had been to Ennis, he was surprised at how much he'd missed her. Edna McClure had spent the last few winter holidays in St. Paul now that Dennis was gone; but was visiting with friends in Duluth this year and was bringing them along.
These were the people Ennis now felt comfortable with, although even neighbors that he saw only a few times a year now seemed familiar, like the ranch hands he used to see every summer. But now he had another reason to look forward to this New Year's, and to take every minute to heart.
This might be the last time.
Early October, 1985
It had happened so fast that his surroundings on the airliner seemed unreal. Alma's terse phone call had come shortly after sunrise and by noon he was on a flight to Amarillo: Junior had suffered a miscarriage. “I'll be there soon's I can get a plane ticket,” he said. “No need,” she'd answered and he'd responded with “didn't say anythin' about needin' “ before hanging up. But he'd been relieved when Alma had mentioned that the house Junior and Curt had rented was small and she'd be the only one staying there although Jenny would be coming as well.
It had taken only one experience with air travel for Ennis to hate it; but this time the discomforts of the cramped steerage-style quarters, stale air and sheer boredom were overridden by his uneasiness over this visit. Since his move to Duluth he had talked with Junior and Jenny on the phone occasionally; but both had sounded uncharacteristically ill at ease, as if they were speaking to a stranger and being careful of everything they'd said. And Alma's voice had that unmistakable I-dare-you tone she'd often used; he could imagine her familiar posture: looking down as if studying something else intently but throwing second-long glances at him here and there. It was unexpected, considering the wary civility that had grown up around them after Junior's wedding.
But “of course you've gotta go,” David encouraged. While Ennis was packing, he had quickly made reservations for a plane ticket, rental car and motel. Leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, as if pretending it was possible to sleep, Ennis knew that Jack was close by but suspected that he would not hear from him.
He was surprised to see Junior waiting for him at the gate. “I told Mom I wanted to ride back home with you, she and Jenny just got here last night. I had her drop me off.” Ennis was glad to see her, but the feeling of some missing piece about to fall into place persisted. “You feelin' okay?” he asked as they got underway in the rental car. “Oh yeah,” she assured him. “Kinda hungry, I think I forgot ta eat this morning.” Ennis saw a Denny's sign half a block ahead and pulled into the parking lot, ignoring Junior's protest: “you're gonna have a few bites at least before we go anywhere.”
Though neither mentioned it, they were both glad to be in each other's company. Alma Junior was more like her father than her namesake, and he had more in common with his eldest daughter than the women in either his birth family or the one he and Alma had started. He'd seen her in Riverton only months before but he imagined that her 21-year-old face looked older in a way he couldn't define, with the flesh stretched a little more tightly across her cheekbones. “I'm sorry about what happened, darlin', he ventured, not knowing what else to say to her. “I wish I had a happier reason for visitin'.”
She shook her head but he could tell she was pleased. “I'm just glad you're here now, Daddy. A few people at the hospital said things like good thing it was so early and you can always try again. I know they meant well but they all seemed to be saying, I didn't really lose anything. And it was just 12 weeks but. . . . Curt and me, we'd known for almost a month and at first neither of us were happy about it. Married just a year and him just startin' a new job. But then we started to plan for it, you know - names, boy or girl, what we needed for the nursery, what she'd look like, what she'd be like, I felt from the start it'd be a girl. And now it feels like we imagined all that....”
“Like it all just disappeared 'n' never happened.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew it, and startled him. But she nodded in agreement. “I think Curt misses that too, plannin' for it, but he hasn't talked much. Just been takin' on more time at work, overtime too and I know we've got some medical bills now but I had insurance--”
The little splinter of pain wasn't diminished by being anticipated. “That's what men do sometimes, darlin'. Start workin' a lot, I mean. It's kinda like - drinkin' ta forget.”
To his surprise, she brightened a little and even look relieved. “Really? I'm glad to told me that, Daddy. And I'm glad you're here now, but. . . . I hope you won't be sorry you came. That's one reason I wanted ta meet you --” So this was it, what he'd been feeling apprehensive about since the phone call. His heart took a few faster beats and his stomach felt queasy.
“You remember that day a friend a yours showed up and you introduced me and Jenny to him? His name was Jack.”
“I remember.” No way he could forget: he'd rarely seen Jack smile after that day.
“Next Thanksgiving we were at Mama and Monroe's house and you and Mama had some kinda big fight in the kitchen. After you - left - Monroe got her a little calmed down and took her upstairs and he told us, just stay down here, don't go anywhere. But Jenny wasn't gonna sit still for that, she waited just a minute or two and went up to our bedroom, the closet in that room backed up ta theirs. She told me afterward she couldn't hear everything they were sayin' but she did hear Mama say, I told you he was runnin' around on me but it wasn't another woman, it was a fishing buddy named Jack. And both of us remembered meeting him....”
They had known. He was too stunned to make any reply. Those years when he'd been so careful, afraid people on the street knew but thinking the people at home didn't - it had all been like trying to carry water in a towel.
“But the next couple a years you weren't going off on those trips so often, the year before me and Curt got married you didn't go at all. So we thought you'd gotten over - whatever it was.” She was looking away from him, her face flushed with the common embarrassment of acknowledging a parent's sexuality in any form.
“I wouldn't be bringin' this up, Daddy, I'd never a mentioned it, but... I think Jenny's gonna bring it up.
“Jenny?”
“She got religion last year, you know. Oh, I'm not talkin' about a cult, it's just a regular Lutheran church she's goin' to, she's got a secretary job there now. And she's engaged to that guy Larry she was talkin' about last year at Christmas, he's just started at a seminary back east. Anyway, she just got her own place but up ta now she was sharing that apartment with Curt's sister. And when she told Luanne about your movin' ta Minnesota and that new job Luanne remembered some relatives from Georgia that were at our wedding. She'd got ta be friends with a lady named Charlene -“
We won’t be seeing David at his wedding anytime soon, not unless they change the laws and Nathan comes back to life. Such an important thing it had been to know about the man who, for a few moments, had seemed to him to resemble Jack, and from such an unlikely source. “Yeah. I remember them.”
“So anyway....” she'd been speaking rapidly, words tumbling over each other as if she wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. “She's got it set up in her mind that she's gotta save your soul and have you get religion too. I told her to let it be and Mama did too but I don't know much she was listening ta either of us.”
At first, it seemed like the visit would be all right. Jenny had seemed glad enough to see him and he and Alma had resumed the cautious cordiality that had solidified over the last year or so; though he couldn't ignore the disappearance of the easy, though brief, conversations that had characterized his relationship with his son-in-law. A drive around the town including a look at Curt's workplace, long discussions of the merits and demerits of the house and yard (“we're rentin' to buy,” Curt had told them proudly), meals, and Junior's and Jenny's reminscences of Riverton and friends they wanted to visit there when they got the chance --- all mercifully ate up the rest of that day and most of following one. Alma was staying in the freshly-painted room that had been planned as a nursery and looking through the door, Ennis felt a commiserating ache at the reminder of vanished plans. He'd been asked what Duluth was like and they'd seemed sincerely impressed when he told them about his new job and his riding classes. “I'll give 'em a rainy day lesson,” Jerry had reassured him over the phone before he left. “How to groom a horse, put on 'n' take off a saddle and bridle, do's and don'ts of feeding 'em - no reason not learn any of that in a riding class.”
But then on the second night they'd gathered on the front porch for a picnic of take-out pizza, garlic bread, beer and ice tea, and conversation temporarily died out as the air grew cooler and the sun had glimmered over the rooftops of nearby houses before sinking out of sight. He was just wondering how soon he'd be able to get away, pleading the early flight tomorrow morning, and be free of the feeling of waiting for a blow to fall when Jenny asked suddenly “are you goin' back ta Duluth tomorrow, Daddy?” This is it, but he managed to give the answer she already knew. “Daddy, I've been waiting ta ask you, don't go back ta that place. Come back ta Denver with me.”
It was worse than anything he'd been through short of looking at the returned postcard stamped DECEASED. Worse, in a way, than his sleeping and waking nightmares about the tire irons: the assailant wasn't a mob of virulent men on whom he might at least inflict considerable pain before they took him out, but one of the two young women who had comprised the only real family he'd had. Everyone on the porch remained seated but the feeling of facing a tribunal ready to pronounce a sentence made him feel that he was standing.
“Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye.”
It was the only thing that kept him from fleeing altogether, having to stand it be damned. At the time he'd barely been aware through the cloud of rage and panic: stopping Alma just short of blurting it all out, you didn't go up there to fish. You 'n' him-- and shaking a fist in her face, something he'd never done. But he remembered the two girls nonetheless, standing on the porch, their voices still so pleading and disappointed after the intervening years.
He wasn't even sure how to react to what Jenny was saying, as so much of it wasn't making sense. “I know you're not goin' ta like hearing this, Daddy,” she began. “And believe me, I don't like sayin' anything about it but I love you too much to leave you the way you are.” She repeated what Junior had already told him about how she'd found out that he was “living with that cousin of Curt's” and about “what happened to his stepbrother.” He didn't look over at Junior but he could almost feel her nervousness and subsequent relief that he'd hadn't given their conversation away.
From there on Jenny meandered into a monologue about a “plan” God had for him and everyone else, how easy it was for anyone to stray away from it “when we try to do things our own way”; and how everyone did in fact stray; after which she used the words broken and brokenness a number of times and made one totally mystifying reference to “worshiping the creature.” She was sincere what she was saying but there was something rehearsed and stilted about it nonetheless; as if, should anyone interrupt her, she might lose her place in the recitation and have to start over. “But I'm not criticizing you, Daddy. We're all sinners and - what you've been doin' - it isn't any worse a sin than drunkenness, or stealing.”
The reference startled him, like an unprovoked kick. “Jenny, there's been lots a times I've been drinkin' more'n I should but I never --”
“That doesn't matter, Daddy. Any sin puts us apart from God, and God can't even deal with it 'till you come to him with a broken heart, through Jesus. That's the only way. God's eyes are too holy to look upon sin --”
The image that immediately filled his mind was not that of a stern cosmic judge but of his brief acquaintance with Vic at the gathering in Grandma's: the dauntingly impeccable dress, the scornful references to Jonathan complete with one side of his mouth slanting up in a half-grimace and nose wrinkled delicately as if in reaction to an unpleasant smell. Before he could even wonder at this trivial memory at such a time it dissolved and something scraped lightly at the edges of awareness like the tiniest pebble in a thin shoe: something like a massive flood that swept away everything before it, of a feeling of awe devoid of fear; before a door slammed on the memory he could never quite revive. “What is it you want me to do?” he asked.
Mistaking his confusion for acceptance, she smiled. “Daddy, I know you think there's no one who can help you with this, but there is. And I'm not just talkin' about prayer, I mean real people who can help you. My minister told me about a group in California called Oasis Ministries, they've helped a lot of people come out of that. Some can't, but that just means God has called some people to chastity and they'd support you if it came ta that. I can go with you, and when we get back home maybe the church can even help set up a support group. God is extending His hand, all you have to do is take it, and my church would welcome you. It's a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”
For a few disquieting seconds he was tempted, imagining a future in which he had nothing to hide, accepted as a repentant sinner but still, accepted; and no longer living so much of the time in a state of controlled anxiety. But in the next moment he knew that the same people who would welcome him into the church as a reformed sexual outlaw would never really accept him. For them he would always carry the taint of pollution and corruption; and they would be proud to show him off at church suppers and picnics and be kind enough to try to prevent him from noticing that they kept their children at a safe distance.
“You know, I ain't queer.” “Me neither.”
But that was something he could stand, though not fix: he had been alone for most of his life. What he would be able to neither fix nor stand would be hearing the pleasure in David's voice over the phone and then telling him he would never be returning to Duluth. Although he wouldn't be able to see David's face, he had only to remember the looks Jack had given him on a long ago day when, with Junior and Jenny watching curiously from the car, he'd told Jack that there'd been a terrible misunderstanding about the divorce. David would be added to the victims of his fear and for all Jenny's good intentions, he would be walking through what he'd been told was Heaven's gate with the stench of brimstone in his nostrils.
He was already shaking his head. “No, Jenny. I'm not goin' ta do that, it wouldn't be.... right.”
“It's the way you've been livin' that isn't right, Daddy. And please don't think I'm blaming you. We all sin, and you've had some bad luck, you've met two bad men who took advantage--”
“Now you shut up about Alma, it ain't her fault.” “Leave them outta this.”
This was not something that anything she'd rehearsed had prepared her for. “Leave....?”
Confronting one of his daughters and risking losing her sickened him. “I know you don't like how I'm livin', Jenny. And if you made me a list a ten ways I let you down as a dad, I could add ten more things to it. But I never let Jack speak bad about your mother and I ain't goin' ta let you speak bad about Jack. And not about David either, he ain't done nothing but be the best man he knows how.”
The protective mask of evangelistic concern dropped and was replaced with defensive anger. “I should have known. Whole time we were growin' up, you were always runnin' off on your fishin' trips - when you weren't off workin'. That man always came first with you - and you came first with Mama, and then Monroe after that --” She was flushed and stammering, and Ennis never knew what would have happened next if Alma had not suddenly stood up and taken her daughter by one arm. “That's enough, Jenny.”
The long-buried anger swiveled toward Alma. “You're defending him, after how he treated you? He--”
“You don't need ta give me a review. There's scores between me and your Dad that'll never be settled but we loved both of you, that was something we never disagreed on. And I'm sorry you always felt like you were in the background, there's nothing we can do about that now. If there's anything you'll learn when you get older - anything any of us learn - it's that things never turn out exactly like you expect.”
It was a welter of confusion and embarrassing emotionalism after that. Jenny had burst into years, Junior had hugged her, Alma had hugged Junior, Jenny had hugged both of them in turn and by then all three were in tears. Ennis' and Curt's eyes had met for the first time in Ennis' visit and despite the awkwardness that had now sprung up between them the glance made both feel a little less uneasy. “I guess it's time ta go,” Alma ventured and the two sisters disappeared into the house momentarily, Curt taking advantage of the moment by following them. Suddenly exhausted and newly self-conscious about being the centerpiece of a family uproar, Ennis leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly. He'd forgotten that Alma was still on the porch, sitting across from him with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Thanks for helpin' just now,” he said finally.
She sighed. “I've never got around much, Ennis. Lived in Riverton all my life, married not long after high school. Never traveled much, except a few trips to Vegas with Monroe. But I have learned a few things over the years. That day Jack Twist came to town and you went off together, you were so nervous and sort of smartened up, like you were goin' out on a date. Hard ta believe now I didn't figure it out before ---” she hesitated a moment - “well, before.”
“I never meant for either of the girls ta know.”
“But that's done now. But Jenny will be okay. What she was sayin', she'd been keeping it in for years, oh, I'm not sayin' she didn't mean any of the religious stuff. But what she was wantin' ta do was go back and do everything over the right way. None of us ever get ta do that. Just give her some time, she'll work it out. And Junior was so happy that you were comin' ta visit, she was feelin' a lot lower about losing the baby than she let on.”
She stood up. “It's been a long two days. You headin' back to the motel soon?”
“Yeah, I want ta say goodbye to the girls yet so I'll sit here awhile.”
“That'd be a good idea. Good night, Ennis.”
He looked over and smiled at her, for the first time in a decade. “Good night, Alma.”
Index to chapters:
Chapter 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/392.html
Chapter 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/523.html
Chapter 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1066.html
Chapter 4: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1485.html
Chapter 5: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/1704.html
Chapter 6: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2038.html
Chapter 7: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2358.html
Chapter 8: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2635.html
Chapter 9: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/2947.html
Chapter 10: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3130.html
Chapter 11: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3356.html
Chapter 12: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3655.html
Chapter 13: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/3934.html
Chapter 14: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4154.html
Chapter 15: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4591.html
Chapter 16: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/4685.html
Chapter 17: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5094.html
Chapter 18: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5140.html
Chapter 19: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/5546.html
Chapter 20: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6249.html
Chapter 21: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6434.html
Chapter 22: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/6843.html
Chapter 23: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7306.html
Chapter 24: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7646.html
Chapter 25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/7723.html
Summary, Chapters 1-25: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8106.html
Chapter 26 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8417.html
Chapter 26 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8634.html
Chapter 27: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8869.html
Chapter 28 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9090.html
Chapter 28, Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9371.html
Chapter 28 Part 3: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9498.html
Chapter 29: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/9953.html
Chapter 30: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10733.html
Chapter 31 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/10870.html
Chapter 31 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11153.html
Chapter 32: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11480.html
Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/11931.html
Notes/Index, Chapter 33: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12217.html
Chapter 34: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12435.html
Index post: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/12557.html
Chapter 35: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13226.html
Chapter 36 Part 1: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13382.html
Chapter 36 Part 2: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13729.html
Chapter 37: http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/13827.html